|
 Reggie VandenBosch, vice president of sales at privately owned
Valley Forge Flag, said the Pennsylvania-based company came to the
decision as pressure grew on South Carolina to remove the banner
from outside the State House in Columbia.
Annin Flagmakers, based in Roseland, New Jersey, announced that it
too would stop making the flag used by the pro-slavery Confederate
states during the 1861-65 American Civil War.
Eder Flag Manufacturing, based in Wisconsin, also said it would no
longer sell or manufacture Confederate flags because of the
Charleston shooting.
Dixie Flag Manufacturing Company's owner Pete Van de Putte told
Reuters late on Tuesday his firm would stop producing the flags as
well, after earlier saying production would continue despite the
controversy. He said one customer on Monday asked for their largest
Confederate flag so he could burn it.
While some in South Carolina see the flag as a reminder of the
state's proud history of defying federal authority, many others view
it as a shameful tribute to the institution of slavery, once a
pillar of the U.S. South's plantation economy.
"We hope that this decision will show our support for those affected
by the recent events in Charleston and, in some small way, help to
foster racial unity and tolerance in our country," Valley Forge Flag
said in a statement.
The 133-year-old company sells millions of flags each year,
VandenBosch said, with Confederate flags making up only a tiny slice
of that business.
Annin makes some 10 million flags every year, and only about 1,000
of them are Confederate flags, said Mary Repke, the company's vice
president of marketing.
The flags are popular in Civil War re-enactments, she said.
According to Annin's website, the company supplied the U.S. flags
for Union troops during the Civil War, and an Annin flag draped the
coffin of slain U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
Supporters say the Confederate flag is a reminder of South
Carolina's heritage and a memorial to Southern casualties during the
Civil War.
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The flag, however, has also long been embraced by white
supremacists. Last week, photos emerged online of Dylann Roof, the
21-year-old white man charged with murdering nine black worshippers
at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,
posing with the flag.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley on Monday called on lawmakers to
take down the flag at the state capitol grounds. Wal-Mart Stores Inc
<WMT.N> and Sears Holdings Corp <SHLD.O> said they would stop
selling products bearing the Confederate flag.
On Tuesday, online auction site eBay Inc <EBAY.O> said it would ban
Confederate flags and related items containing the flag's image from
its website.
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which
researches U.S. hate groups, applauded the big retailers' decision
to pull the merchandise.
"All of the publicity surrounding the sale of Confederate flags
became too toxic to handle, and that’s a good thing," he said.
(Reporting by Edward McAllister; Additional reporting by Ellen
Wulfhorst in New York, Jim Forsyth in San Antonio and Mari Saito;
Editing by Tiffany Wu and Toby Chopra)
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reserved.]
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